October
by Zayz
Summary: T/Z. Twenty-five Octobers later, Tony and Ziva are still living out their happily ever after.


A/N: Surprise! I wrote a fic!

I know. I know. It's crazy. I didn't expect to. I didn't want you to expect me to. But the Ziva-versary was hitting me hardcore with feels today while I scrolled Tumblr- and, well, two hours later, this happened. I was going to leave it just on Tumblr, but I figured you sweethearts on FFN have been nothing but kind to me, so I'm posting it here now as well, in case any of you are interested.

It's very sickly-sweet- and very short, which is unusual for a girl who tends to post 10k-word monsters on here to compensate for my long absences- but I hope you'll forgive me my sentimentality. And if you like the fic, please do remember to leave me a review on your way out!

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**October  
By: Zayz**

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"It's October," Tony tells the Sunday afternoon sky, distinctly bemused. The breeze answers back, rustling the trees and sending the yellowing leaves to the ground like confetti. "I can't believe it's already October."

"I know." The amused smile is audible in Ziva's voice. "You'll have to bring the chair inside after a few more weeks."

Tony sighs, rests his head back against the head of his favorite easy chair. Age had made it difficult some years ago for his back to endure the unforgiving hardness of lawn chairs, so he began moving his easy chair outside into the backyard in early summer— sat there for hours with a newspaper or a book every afternoon as time passed, sweet and unhurried, transitioning the hot days into warm nights. The yard is small, but blooming with color: amongst Ziva's numerous hobbies post-retirement, gardening is her favorite, and his. She takes meticulous care of her flowers, forever fighting off weeds and unfriendly animals, and he enjoys the fruits of her labor in his easy chair. Only when autumn waned, and the promise of snow hung in the air, did Tony deep-clean the chair and move it into the den of their little townhouse, leaving it by the window to safely enjoy the snow in winter. The movement of the chair in and out of the house has become, in recent years, an informal marker for the changing seasons.

Another summer, another struggle to squeeze the chair through the doorway into the house— another year, almost gone.

Ziva, who prefers to sit on the lawn swing across from Tony's easy chair with a good book, smiles affectionately at her husband of twenty-five years. Her dark curls, now streaked with silver, catches the dying sunlight with an attractive honey glow. "You don't have to look so glum. October means that we are closer to Thanksgiving. The girls will be home from school then."

"That's true." His whole face— his wrinkles, his dimples, his intelligent hazel eyes— seems to come alive at the thought of his daughters, who are both away in college now.

Hana, a junior, is at Brown, studying to be a doctor. Mairi is also at Brown as a freshman this year— undecided. The girls call relatively often, but both Tony and Ziva eagerly anticipate their visit home; leaving Mairi at school in August, and coming back to an empty house, was almost too much to bear. Even Mairi, the baby, has grown up.

"Did you talk to Mae today?" Ziva asks Tony. "She was asking after you."

"I did." He smiles. "She said she is thinking about declaring an English major."

"She told me last week that she was thinking about psychology." Ziva laughs. "I told her that she should not declare anything until she can settle on it for more than a week."

"She's restless. I wonder who she gets it from." His voice is light, and his smile is kind, but his eyes are moody.

Ziva rises from the swing— still lithe and lovely all these years later— and crosses the yard to perch herself on Tony's lap. His knees complain, and they're a tight squeeze on his single-seater, but she fits just right, as she always has; their ankles collide like swinging pendulums, and he wraps his arms around the stomach that carried his children, and he buries his face into her neck, her curls cascading down and cocooning him in. They have been married for twenty-five years, but she smells as good as she did the first time she let him hold her this way; he breathes her in, her and her warmth and their life together, and his grip around her waist tightens ever so slightly.

Every October, when they start talking about moving the chair and thinking about how old their children have gotten, they also think of the October he left her behind in Tel Aviv— the October of their last, and most painful, separation.

Their careers at NCIS saw them separated frequently, for good and also for painful reasons. The time she left to stay with her father and Mossad looms large in their memories— but the time that she told him she needed space, and he was obligated to give it to her, looms the largest. Because he didn't lose her, that time; she lost herself, and he could not be the tether to bring her back.

It was one of the hardest things he had done, leaving her on the tarmac as he boarded a plane meant to take them both home. But he did it. And she told him later that it was the kindest thing he could have done for her.

She traveled for months, revisiting old places and friends, as well as making new memories. It took a few weeks for the first postcard to find its way to him at NCIS, but she sent a steady stream of them— she preferred them to emails because she wanted him to see her words in her own hand.

She never stayed long in any one place. _Restless_, he used to call her then, too. But she told him, on one of their rare phone calls, that she did not intend to be a restless vagabond forever. She just wanted closure on those things that woke her demons up at night and would not let her sleep. And she couldn't put a timeline on closure, because it was a process that illuminated no steps in advance, and only finished when it finished.

But it did finish— almost exactly a year later, near the end of October, in the earliest hours of Saturday morning, when her wanderings and her need for closure finally led her back to Washington D.C. Tony was the ultimate closure— because when he arrived at his door, bleary-eyed and half-asleep in his boxers, and he took her in his arms, she knew she no longer needed to run. She could stay still now, and settle the way she had always wanted to.

The first thing he said to her that night, even before he said hello, was a question: "Are you going to leave again?" She answered, no, and didn't.

It took him a while to believe her. Beneath the bravado she was so accustomed to seeing, and assuming was the bedrock of his character, he was so tender, and he couldn't handle another rupture between them. He did not blame her or resent her for staying in Tel Aviv, but he couldn't give himself to her upon her return if she was going to fly off once more. He was ready to settle. He was ready to lay his roots even deeper into D.C., the only real home he had ever known, and he wanted to lay them with her.

She agreed— and they were married a year later. The date was October 14. Ziva had suggested the traditional May/June wedding date, but in the end, they were autumn people. They had weathered great change in their lives, and found both the beauty and the melancholy of it. They were not afraid of the oncoming winter: it was just a season, and the earth would come back to life within a few months. The ceremony was quiet, but exuberantly decorated by Abby, who was appointed maid of honor.

Nearly twenty-six years later, they think of this— they think of restlessness and settlement, of change and continuity— and he holds her close to him, determined never to be apart.

Indeed, they haven't been since Tel Aviv. They have been here in Washington D.C. together. Tony worked as an active NCIS field agent until about eight years ago, when his joints ached too much to ignore and he decided to take a desk job instead. Ziva chose not to return to NCIS and instead went back to school to become a teacher; she teaches third grade. It was the last thing she had ever imagined for herself— it is a noisy, but utterly domesticated career choice— but she found, over the time she spent traveling, that she liked to work with children. She liked to teach for the same reason she became interested in gardening: she wanted to build and create, rather than destroy. She wanted to invest in life, and see it grow. She wanted to believe in change, and renewal, and innocence. So far, it has suited her.

It was her teaching job that wore down Ziva's reluctance to have children of her own. She had never expected to have them— especially not daughters— because "family" hadn't been in her purview, not even when she was a child herself. Carrying Hana inside her— feeling her tiny body move and kick just beneath her skin— brought Ziva a terror that she couldn't have fathomed even in her violent years of service to Mossad. But settling, and being around kids everyday, brought out her softness, her protectiveness. Tony was so excited when she finally told him that she wanted to become pregnant; he had wanted a family since they had gotten married. Ziva conceived Hana surprisingly quickly, and Mairi followed soon after— unplanned, but the sweetest surprise.

Motherhood was a challenging task, especially for Ziva, who had always been afraid that unconditional love came with hidden strings, who had been afraid of raising and loving young women, of making her parents' mistakes. But she found unexpected and profound solace in parenthood. It was a role both she and Tony embraced wholeheartedly. Raising Hana and Mae— and watching Mae tearfully hug them goodbye when moving into Brown this summer— has been the greatest gift and adventure that she has ever known.

Another October, and she is here with Tony, rich with another year of memories. The breeze displaces more leaves off the trees, and Tony playfully nibbles at Ziva's ear, making her chuckle.

"Hey, I love you," he says, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. "You and our restless, undecided daughter." He pauses in mock-consideration. "And I love the decided daughter too."

"Love you too," she murmurs, grazing her ankle across his calf.

"Happy October," he says.

She tilts her head to capture his lips in a kiss.


End file.
